Greening Your Ventilation

Since today’s houses are now tightened for air conditioning as well as heating, there is less and less natural ventilation in our homes. This means that additional forms of mechanical ventilation are needed to deal with interior pollution.
A healthy home is “dry, clean, well ventilated, pest-free, free from contaminants, safe, and well-maintained” according to the National Center for Healthy Housing. A green home should also be a healthy home, and ventilation is one of the principal ways we can ensure a green home’s health. If health were not a consideration in buildings, we could very well ignore ventilation. In this column, I’ll look at the role ventilation plays in making a home healthier from the start, and in maintaining its health after it is occupied. I’ll also explore the potential and limitations of ventilation in new and older homes.
As technological advances have brought new tools to the ventilation field, building scientists are constantly struggling to come up with standards that will provide us with as complete and effective a ventilation strategy for each building as possible. The intense debates, ...